Barnyardtalk
by Dutch FF-lover
Summary: Challenge last year: write a scene from B&B from an animal point of view. And this is the outcome!


Barnyardtalk

Once upon a time, in a far away land (well actually, that depends on where you are now), there was a lovely little village in the middle of France somewhere in the 18th century. This village wasn't really special or extraordinary. Every day as the day before, nothing happens there, dull people, etc. You get the picture, we've all been to those kind of villages. Just your normal average little village with bakers, butchers, bookstores, bimbettes, beastly boys, babies, bullfrogs and a whole lot of other things that start with a B. But that's not really relevant here, what is relevant is that at the border of this village there was a small cottage. A very weird house with a well you could get water from, just by staying in the kitchen, a complicated peeping device at the door and an everturning waterwheel next to the house. It may not surprise you that in this house you will find weird people and that there are weird animals hanging around in the barnyard. In the house lived an old inventor with his daughter. Her name was Belle. They had a few chickens, some goats, a horse, a pig and a cat. They didn't need anything else, they had each other and the animals. Quite idyllic.

I think that is enough introduction, we go now to the left of the house. There is a wooden covering with a wooden fench. That's where all the animals were, except for two: the horse, he was with the old inventor of to an invention convention and where the cat was… probably chasing mice or something or maybe some other cat business. The three goats, André, Nicole and Antoinette, just came back from the meadow and were resting. Pierre, the pig was bathing in a puddle of mud on the other side of the house and on the fence sat the two chickens: Abigail and Amelia, clucking like chickens do.

"Where did all the corn go?" Abigail wondered, when she jumped into the trough.

Amelia swallowed the last bit of corn and said."You shouldn't eat so much corn, or else your eggs will turn yellow."

"That's no reason for you to eat all corn! What about your eggs! And what am I supposed to eat now?"

" I think you can do without corn for a while."

"Are you saying I'm a fat chicken?" Abigail clucked offended. She flapped her wings angrily and tried to snatch away the piece of corn Amelia had in her beak

"Stop it," André said, he was getting so tired from all this mindless babbling. He stood up and hung his head over the fence. "Look, there is something going on over there..."

"What? Where, I can't see!" Abigail started immediately.

"He's gone now," André answered. "Two men were looking through the bushes at the house!"

One of the other goats, Nicole started to bleat nervously. "Oh my... What are we supposed to do? What if they are robbers?"

"In broad daylight?" André said bored "Don't be silly."

"Well, they could be watching the house to come back later..." Nicole replied.

Antoinette, the oldest of the barnyard animals, slowly shook her head, "I don't think so, there are more people. Look!" She looked next to the bushes, a whole group of humans were busy there.

"I want to see too!" Abigail clucked.

"Jump on the fench then!" Amelia said. "I can see them, it looks like there are over fifty people!"

"What are they doing?"

"No idea," Antoinette said. "But it looks pretty unusual. Who puts a table outside?"

"Maybe it's a picnic?"

André started to laugh. "With all those flowers on the table and white linen table cloths?"

"It must be a party! Everyone is looking so happy!" Nicole looked at all the men laughing. It looked like a very jolly group.

"It can't be a party... those three blonde girls look really depressed. Look! They are crying!" André pointed with his horns over to three girls who seemed utterly upset with whatever that was going on.

"I hear music!"

"Catchy tune..." Abigail clucked, while she jumped from the fench to the head of Nicole.

Antoinette recognized the tune, she had heard it before... but it was a long long time ago. Even before Belle was born. "Isn't that 'here comes the bride'?" she thought outloud.

"Could be, I never really liked music," André said. "But if they are playing a song about a bride, shouldn't there be a bride?"

"I don't see any girl dressed in a big white dress... isn't that a condition for a wedding?"

"I guess, so no party, no wedding, then what is going on over there?" Amelia said irritated. She couldn't stand it that there were humans doing something so close to her house and she didn't know what.

"Watch it! One of them is coming over!"

Abigail started to panic. She didn't like people, besides the one that fed her. "Who is he?" she said.

"I can't see with your feathers in my eyes!" Nicole said irritated. "Now I missed him!"

"I couldn't see it either, all I saw was something red and white," André shrugged.

Abigail jumped off Nicole's head and landed on the grass on the other side of the fench. "We'll go ask Pierre, he must have seen who went in!" Abigail and Amelia quickly waddled over to the mud pool.

"Pierre!" Abigail yelled. "Did you see who entered the house?"

"I sure did!" The pig nodded. He was bathing in the mud pool for hours now. The mud pool was located next to the stairs that led to the front door. Pierre could see everything that was going on at the front of the house.

"Tell us!"

Pierre rolled on his back and started to swim to the edge of the pool. "It was that big muscular man who comes to the house more often."

Abigail and Amelia looked at each other. They knew exactly who Pierre was talking about. "The guy that is always following Belle when she comes back from the village?"

"That's the one," Pierre said cheerfully.

"What does he want?"

"No idea, but he looked really happy. And fancy!"

Abigail started to snicker. "How do you know if a guy looks fancy?"

"His clothes smelled clean," Pierre pointed out. "And a man only looks fancy when his clothes are clean."

"When you look at that guy you look at what he wears?" Amelia wondered.

"What do you know about humans?" Abigail said giggling.

"I just think that for a human he is handsome, he has no red comb, or a nice tail, but still... I think he's very handsome"

"I agree," Pierre nodded. "He's mighty handsome."

"See! Pierre agrees with me," Amelia said proudly. She looked to the group of people, they were very quiet now. Like they were waiting for something to happen. She pointed with her wing to the group of men. "The other guy, the little one, over there looks less... well, nice."

"The one with the musical instrument for a head?" Pierre asked.

"Yeah, I don't call him handsome," Abigail admitted.

"I don't know, he looks interesting... Wait!" Pierre looked back at the house. "I heard something!"

"I heard it too! It was something heavy falling to the floor." Abigail said.

Pierre rolled his eyes. "I do hope it's not the bookcase, it took Belle forever to put all the books back in!"

The door flew open and the man stumbled out and landed in the pool of mud... Head first. Right next to Pierre.

Abigail and Amelia flew to the top of the stairs.

"Well! I'd never!" Amelia exclaimed annoyed. How rude of the man to fall out like that, they were just in the middle of a good conversation!

The muscular man in the mud pool climbed out, he wasn't so amused either. He shouted something to the little guy, before throwing him into the pool.

"Touchy!" the little guy said bewildered and Pierre grunted in agreement.


End file.
